KEY POINTS:
North Shore City Council rates are likely to rise by an average of 5.9 per cent for 2009-10 and the two years beyond.
Last night councillors held their fourth meeting to try and come up with a draft budget that would show sympathy with ratepayers in a recession.
Mayor Andrew Williams said management had said they could not pare the budget lower than an average rise of 6.3 per cent.
"We said it was not good enough and wanted to find more economies."
The council is now looking at approving at a further meeting next week an average rates rise over the next 15 years of 5.4 per cent.
However, chief financial officer Dale Lott said this could mean city debt at the end of the period of $339 million, peaking in 10 years at $671 million.
The actual increase for the coming year could be 6.4 per cent, when adding the $1.3 million levy to the Auckland Regional Amenities Fund.
Mr Williams said the compulsory levy would be shown on a separate line on the rates bill. "If people are disgruntled about that, we will tell them to ring their MPs because it was the MPs who pushed it through Parliament."
He was upbeat about the chance of lowering rates further because of lower interest charges on loans, currently provided for in the draft budget at just over 7 per cent.
